Commenting Conspiracy

Not me. The population of the Austin, Texas, area.

The local paper, the Austin American-Statesman, has begun a transition from one commenting system to another. Like most online newspapers, each story usually has an area where readers can sign up and comment on the story. And like on most websites, it usually devolves very quickly into name-calling and political low blows.

But the Statesman has been pretty transparent with their change, preemptively explaining the change, and notifying readers that commenting would be down until the news servers and system were installed. You'd think that would be the right thing.

Apparently not.

Already, the original blog post (blogs use a different system and continue to allow commenting) are full of all sorts of black-helicopter paranoid delusions of why the Statesman is "really" putting commenting on hold.

"Where is the transparency Austin American[sic]? Do you really think we beleive [sic] it is the reason. [sic] Your reporters dont [sic] want their bosses to read the comments while they can spew out their biased stories or comments like why did this reporter just rehash the press release that the politician sent them. [sic sic sic] Get real and tell us the real reason for this change."


"I bet Soros is behind this."


You can read the rest of the tripe here. Just know that the Statesman's parent company, Cox Media Group, is implementing a number of changes at the local level, and that the paper is simply upgrading technologies. It's not rocket science.

But when you're dealing with people who don't believe in science, then it becomes a huge conspiracy.